She gasped and shrank back.
“You are dirty!” she laughed, patting my shoulder. “Put me down, Big Boy. I have to go eat. And you have to get back to work.”
She threw the can into the recycling bin in the corner, and then turned to start out the door.
I held her up and placed my lips on her neck.
“Thank you for the hug, Baby.”
She looked over her shoulder at me.
“You’re welcome.”
With one last glance in my direction, she went to eat her lunch, and I went back to work.
And I was fucking happy.
***
I got out of my truck and started walking up the front walkway to the entrance of the daycare.
Elise was at a different daycare now, as the damage to the last one required it to close for months to allow for renovation.
I’d just reached the top step and started inputting my code that would allow me entry when my phone rang in my pocket.
I ignored it and waved to the young girl at the front, making my way to the back of the building, through the colorful halls, to Elise’s classroom.
I stopped at the half door and looked over it into the room beyond.
I was one of the last parents to pick up, but I’d literally just gotten off work.
She was one of three, and they were all laughing and playing Patty Cake in the middle of the floor with their teacher.
“Elise,” I called, causing her to jerk her head to the side.
“Dadadadada!” she exclaimed, running as fast as her short, chubby legs would allow her, heading to the door where I stood.
I grinned and waited for her to pull herself up on the door before reaching over it and hooking my hands underneath her arms.
The moment she was within neck reach, she pulled herself in close and buried her face into my neck.
“Mmmmm,” she babbled into my neck. “Mmmmm.”
The ‘dada’ thing was new, and each time she said it, it made my heart swell about fifteen times its normal size.
“She had an accident today,” her teacher, Linley, gave me the accident report.
I immediately started checking her over, going into protective father mode in a heartbeat.
“Right here,” Linley gestured to her back.
“How did that happen?” I asked, upset now to see that bruises from a bite mark on her back.
“Another student did it,” she grimaced.
I refrained from saying ‘no shit’ and sighed.
“Did you ice it?” I asked. “Put anti-bacterial on it or anything?”
She nodded her head frantically.
“We did,” she promised. “I’ve been icing it on and off all afternoon.”
I gritted my teeth and held my hand out for her diaper bag.
“She’s almost out of diapers,” she hesitated to say. “And she has about another week on her wipes.”
My phone rang again, but with Elise in one arm, and her huge diaper bag in the other, I let it ring and nodded goodbye to her teacher.
“I’ll bet it was a boy, wasn’t it?” I asked Elise. “I should teach you how to fight back.”
A woman giggled behind me, and I turned to find a redhead smiling at me.
“My child got in trouble last week.” She gestured to her son, which was about four months older than Elise. “They threatened to kick him out.”
I snorted and started walking once she reached my side.
“That’s inconvenient,” I muttered, my gaze on the hallway and not the lady walking at my side.
“It is. But I suppose that happens when your daddy is a professional boxer.”
My brows rose at that, but I didn’t comment as I pushed through the exit and headed for my truck.
The woman headed to a brand spanking new Cadillac Escalade, causing me to rethink my career choice.
Maybe I should’ve been a fighter like her husband.
Except, I wasn’t really into rules and regulations. I worked out, lifted weights, and stayed in shape.
If it ever came down to it, I would just pull my concealed handgun out and shoot, totally bypassing all that fighting bullshit.
I was all about survival, not fighting to fight.
Although, before Fatbaby, one of the firefighters who’d been injured about a year ago, had become a firefighter, he’d been a boxer.
He’d been a damn good boxer, too.
But his calling had been firefighting.
Firefighting that he could no longer do because of his movement restrictions.
He was, for all intents and purposes, at full health.
The burns he had received restricted his movement, causing him to fail his return-to-work physical. And the part he failed was a stupid stipulation put in by the dickhead mayor.
You had to be able to turn your head fully to the left, and fully to the right.
Fatbaby was able to get about sixty degrees one way, and ninety the other.
Meaning he couldn’t pass the stupid physical, even though his entire body was well enough for him to pass the rest of the physical.
Something we’d just been informed of today by the chief.
When we asked him to appeal the stipulation, he’d explained that he was. It just took time.
And in the meantime, Fatbaby was without a job, and looking to transfer to a different department a few states away.
The man was full of surprises, though.
When he’d come to take his things, which we’d been storing in the storage closet for the last year, he’d been riding a motorcycle.
Which was a big change from the old classic cars he used to drive around in.
It was like he was a completely different person—in looks and personality.
“Dadada,” Elise babbled, pulling me out of my thoughts. “ReeRee!”
I grinned at her.
“I got your drink, baby.” I reached to the bag that I’d picked up from the store, pulled out a bottle of orange juice, and immediately filled up the spare cup Angie and I kept in the car for these situations.
She immediately started sucking it down, and I closed the door and walked around the side of the truck, only to come to a halt when my phone rang again.
Once I had it pulled from my pocket, I answered it and pressed it against my ear.
“Hello?” I reached for the door handle and had started inside when Luke’s first words stunned me so badly I could barely function.
“I found the connection,” Luke supplied the moment I answered.
I knew instantly he was talking about Troy.
“Well, what is it?” I asked, idly reaching under the seat and making sure my sidearm was still where I’d left it.
I tried not to wear it around with me when I was going to pick up Elise.
Although I wore it concealed, it was still obvious what it was. My clothes didn’t conceal it anywhere near as much as I would have liked, and I hadn’t found a comfortable way to wear it yet. Unlike Booth and the others, I couldn’t wear it on my ankles. It tended to chafe, and I ended up in a lot of freakin’ pain at the end of the day.
So I wore it at the small of my back.
However, after being on duty today—a situation where I wasn’t allowed to wear it—and then coming straight here, I hadn’t yet taken it out from under my truck seat.
Which saved my fucking life.
“Apparently, he has an extensive list of people he’s been able to manipulate by, A: blackmailing them into doing what he wants them to, or B: by beating the ever-loving shit out of them and their family members. He has two men that he blackmailed that are state officials. One works with the state attorney general’s office, and the other is one of the governor’s top aides. His file is in the black, meaning we can’t access it.”
That sounded shitty.
I got inside the truck, bringing the gun with me to place it in my lap, and stared blankly at my lap while I let my foot rest against the open door.
“Troy uses his family’s money to pay off anyone he needs to, and if that doesn’t work, he puts the heat on their asses or their family members,” Luke continued. “As of eight minutes ago, he was officially out on bond,” Luke growled in frustration. “He’s wanted for over eighteen charges, terroristic threats being one of them, and he was somehow let go. I’m not sure how the fuck that even works, but since it’s the county and not me, I have no fuckin’ control over it,” he growled in frustration. “I called you as soon as I knew.”
My hand gripped the gun tighter involuntarily.
Elise shrieked, causing me to look up, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a blur of motion.
Dropping my phone, I spun around, my hand still on my gun, and saw Troy staring at her from only two feet away.
His arm was coming down, another fucking pry bar in his hand, and it was headed straight for my head.
Acting on my gut reaction only, I lifted my gun, aimed, and fired.
Thank fucking God for trigger safeties. If there’d been an actual safety on the gun, I’d have missed my opportunity.
Troy fell backwards as a blossom of red formed on his chest followed by a loud bang echoing in my ear.
Troy laid on the ground his mouth opening and then closing as he tried to make sense of what’d just happened.
Hell, I was trying to make sense of it, too.
I was still in the fucking truck. Elise was screaming. I could hear my phone ringing from the floorboard. Oh, and people were screaming on top of that.
Starting the truck, I turned the air conditioner on, grabbed my keys, picked up my phone, reached for my go bag behind the seat, and then closed the door.
Once it was closed soundly, I locked it, pocketed the keys, and dropped down on my haunches and immediately answered my phone.
“Luke,” I said calmly. “I need an ambulance at my daughter’s daycare. I just shot Troy.”
***
Angie
Heart pounding, I ran up the steps of the police station, and walked straight into the inner sanctum.
In all my years as a citizen of Kilgore, Texas, I’d never once been in the police station.
Not. Once.
Then again, a lot of things had changed in only a day.
One, I’d finished my probationary period and I was now an official nurse of Good Shepherd Medical Center, although I was at the Kilgore branch.
Two, I’d nearly lost my job when I’d not only refused to help a patient, but I’d then walked off the job.
Which led me to now, at the police station, frantic.
The first person I saw when I walked in was Luke, and he was holding my daughter, who was asleep on his massive shoulder.
If this situation were different, I might stop and reflect on how hot he looked holding a baby, but I wasn’t in the least happy with him right now.
Especially since I’d found out that he’d not only known Troy was out—which I might add that he shouldn’t be, but he’d also arrested my fiancé for shooting the man who’d never made it a secret that he was a creepy motherfucker willing to kill.
“You!” I snapped. “Give me my baby, you jerk.”
I wasn’t sure that was appropriate behavior to use around the chief of police, but I couldn’t seem to control my mouth, or my temper, at the moment.
In fact, he was lucky I wasn’t going all Chuck Norris on his ass.
He turned, and immediately handed Elise over to me, being careful not to jolt my baby awake while he was at it.
I would not be swayed by his baby skills!
“I’m not very happy with you,” I informed him. “In fact, I am about a minute away from calling the press and telling them everything that happened to me.”
Luke sighed.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked tiredly.
I narrowed my eyes. “I want you to let my fiancé go, and I want you to leave us the hell alone.”
“Your fiancé,” Luke’s lips tipped up, his eyes flicking over my head at something that was behind me. “Isn’t being held on anything. He’s been free to go for an hour now.”
“Then where the hell is he?” I snapped.
“Here.”
I turned to find Bowe directly behind me. His hair was a wild mess, and his jaw was clenched tightly.
“He didn’t die,” I informed him. “He also will likely be paralyzed from the mid belly down.”
I couldn’t keep the smile from forming on my face.
I was likely going to hell, but I couldn’t stop the happiness that poured through me.
“Here,” I handed Elise back over to Luke. “Hold her for me.”
“Sure,” Luke took her, a hint of laughter tinging his voice. “I’ll just be in my office.”
I threw myself at Bowe, who caught me with ease.
“God,” I whispered. “Today, two of the people who make my life worth living could’ve been taken away from me. If not for your quick thinking, that is.” I looked up at him. “And they tried to force me to work on him and I wouldn’t. I’m not sure if I even have a job anymore.”
Bowe hugged me tighter.
When he still didn’t say anything, I lifted my head from his chest and stared into his sorrow-filled eyes.
“It was the right thing to do.”
He didn’t say anything.
“He could’ve taken Elise. Done so many things to her that it scares me with the possibilities.”
This got a reaction out of him, and his eyes went cold.
“I trust you with her. And I was proven right today,” I whispered fiercely. “You saved my baby.”
He closed his eyes.
“And if I already didn’t love you like crazy, and you hadn’t already asked me to marry you, I might very well have just declared my undying love and forced you to create babies with me.”
He huffed out a laugh.
“So, what’s wrong?” I whispered.
He squeezed me tighter.
“I had something to eat that didn’t agree with my stomach and have spent the last twenty minutes in the bathroom,” he grinned.
“Are you for real?” I asked skeptically.
He nodded.
I threw my head back and laughed.
“You’re such a freakin’ shithead.”
Chapter 26
I don’t have a step daughter. I have a daughter that was born before I met her.
-Bowe’s words to Angie on the day of their wedding
Angie
“This is beautiful,” I whispered, looking at the memorial for all those who lost their lives the day of the tornado. “They did a wonderful job at it, too.”
But then a thought occurred to me, and I winced.
“I’m not really sure how I feel about the fact that they made a freakin’ tornado to put all their names on, though,” I mumbled, staring up at the massive metal tornado that was made of spiraling steel and copper.
Bowe’s mother grabbed my hand, and we looked at the huge structure together.
Bowe’s father was on my other side, his hand gently running down Elise’s back as he held her tightly to his large chest.
His parents had become a staple in my life since the day Bowe was nearly killed by Troy.
After that day, all other past hostilities were forgotten. We were now good friends, and they got along great with my family. It was also incredibly special to me the way they treated my daughter like their own grandchild.
My eyes turned back to the art in front of me.
“You ready, Sis?” I heard called from behind me.
I turned to find my brother, sister, and mother all standing at the entrance to the fire station.
It seemed fitting that we do it here. This was Bowe’s home away from home, and also the central hub of our lives. The school where we slowly fell in love, day after day, was less than a minute away. Then there was the hospital that was less than a mile away as well.
We’d discussed a lot of possibilities, and surprising
ly it’d been the chief who’d recommended the station.
The wedding fell together after that.
After confirming that Bowe wouldn’t be facing any charges for shooting Troy—who lived, despite my secret wish to the contrary—we decided to move forward with the wedding.
Neither of us wanted frills or fripperies. We wanted real. We wanted it done. And we wanted to enjoy ourselves as we did it.
I’d just taken the first step towards my family, my hand drifting to Elise’s head, when a gruff, “Wait!” had me halting in my tracks.
I turned to find my father there.
He looked old.
Really old.
Much older than when I’d last seen him.
My belly turned. “Yeah?”
“I…” he hesitated, his eyes going to my mother, brother, and sister behind me. “I want to walk you down the aisle.”
I sobered instantly.
“You don’t get that privilege,” I whispered roughly. “You don’t get that.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I’m your father,” he said more forcefully.
That was the father I knew. Not this broken-down shell who kind of looked like my father.
“Where were you when I turned sixteen?” I asked softly. “Where were you the day I got into my first manual car and tried to learn how to drive?”
He didn’t answer.
“That’s right,” I smiled. “You weren’t there. Alec was.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but I held up my hand.
“Where were you when I went to prom and came home early because my prom date tried to feel me up in the parking lot an hour later?”
His face lost some of its color.
“That’s right, you weren’t there. Ariel was. She held me while I cried and we waited for mom to come home from work.”
He swallowed.
“Where were you the day Elise was born?” I whispered brokenly. “Where were you when I needed my father to hold my hand? To meet my baby? To give her all of the love that a grandfather should?”
His eyes flicked up to Marcus, who still held Elise close, and he grimaced.
“Where were you the day my ex nearly killed me?” I asked. “Everyone was at the hospital but you.”
Put Out (Kilgore Fire Book 5) Page 20
